Tel Aviv [Israel], March 15 (ANI): Amid the developing security situation in West Asia and the Gulf in the wake of the conflict in Iran, Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) spokesperson Lieutenant Ben Cohen said that it was necessary to take measures against the “terrorist regime” of Iran.
He said it was imperative not only to diffuse the “ticking time bomb” but to remove it altogether.
When asked about the “end game of Israel” and when the war would end, Lt Cohen told ANI, “Our goal is to take a ticking time bomb and not just to diffuse it and wait for them to ignite it again. It is to remove the bomb altogether. We cannot live in a reality where we have a terrorist regime that yells ‘Death to America’, that yells ‘Death to Israel’, and that takes the necessary measures in order to try to make that vision a reality. We can’t allow for it to happen.”
He added that Iran was targeting sites across the region, which was not only harming the regional partners but also the people of Iran.
“The Iranian terrorist regime is not only targeting us. They’re destabilising their entire region. They fired at 12 countries in the region, including in Europe. They’re firing ballistic missiles at civilian infrastructure not only in Israel, but in countries all along the Gulf. And they’ve shown very clearly that their vision is one of an extremist Islamic terrorist organisation whose goal is to destroy the lives of others and to destabilise the region while advancing itself – by the way, not for its people, but only for its leadership as their people suffer in congruence to the Gulf states, to Israel, to the United States,” Lt Cohen said.
Lt Cohen said that the operations would continue until the goal is reached. “We’re going to keep operating as long as we have to in order to remove that existential threat. This is a military operation with a clear goal, and we can’t give up until that goal is achieved.”
When asked about how the casualties are rising across the region, including the death of school children in Minab, Iran, Lt Cohen said that the IDF and US armed forces look at the loss of every civilian life as a tragedy and that they investigate them. He called Iran a “terrorist regime with terrorist tactics”.
“There’s one thing that’s very different between the Iranian terrorist regime and between the IDF and the United States Armed Forces hand in hand, and that’s the way that we look at civilian life. I really mean it when I say that we look at every loss of civilian life as a tragedy. We investigate every strike, and we take a lot of actions in order to mitigate harm to civilians – whether it be early evacuation, intelligence, precise strikes and precise munitions, and a lot of other methods that we use in order to mitigate harm to civilians. The Iranian terrorist regime, on the other hand, we have explicit intelligence that shows that they not only don’t care that civilians get hurt, but they’re also trying to hurt civilians. They’re a terrorist regime with terrorist tactics,” Lt Cohen said.
“There are civilian losses of life on all sides. We do our best to mitigate it. We put a lot of effort into that. We see every loss of civilian life as a tragedy, and I think that’s the main difference when you’re talking about, you know, a story of good versus evil,” he added.
His remarks come amid the developing security situation in West Asia, where US-Israeli strikes resulted in the assassination of 86-year-old Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The current round of conflict in West Asia, which started on February 28, has witnessed fighting between Israel and the United States on one side and Iran on the other.
Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed serious concern over the escalating crisis in West Asia, warning that the situation poses a major threat to global peace and security. Earlier in a post on X, Guterres said the unfolding conflict has caused immense suffering for civilians and urged all sides to move towards de-escalation and dialogue.
Calling for an immediate end to hostilities, the UN chief emphasised that diplomacy remains the only viable path forward. (ANI)